NEW DELHI: Congress kept up its attack on Finance Minister
Arun Jaitley and the Modi government for allowing “fugitive tycoon” Vijay Mallya to flee the country with party president Rahul Gandhi alleging on Friday that CBI “aided” Mallya’s “great escape” by downgrading the “detain” notice to “inform”. Gandhi also said it was “inconceivable” that this could have been without Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s approval.
“Mallya’s Great Escape was aided by the CBI quietly changing the ‘detain’ notice for him to ‘inform’. The CBI reports directly to the PM. It is inconceivable that the CBI, in such a high profile, controversial case, would change a lookout notice without the approval of the PM (sic),” Rahul said on
Twitter.
Since Mallya’s sensational revelation outside a London Court that he met Jaitley in Parliament and told him he planned to leave for London surfaced, the government and Congress have exchanged a series of allegations and counter allegations over the liquor baron’s claims.
While Congress leader PL Punia dug in his heels and challenged the government to release CCTV footage of the Parliament’s Central Hall from March 1 2016, when Jaitley allegedly met Mallya in “an elaborate 15-20 minute meeting”, Congress also said raised questions about the CBI’s independence in the case. Demanding to know why the investigating agency diluted a restraining order to one merely ‘informing’ the authorities about Mallya’s escape, party spokesperson
Randeep Surjewala said, “BJP is not corruption free, neither is CBI. They are investigation free; because, they want to be accountability free.”
Demanding answers to why Jaitley, despite knowing of Mallya’s imminent escape, did not tell direct concerned authorities to stop Mallya or to detain his passport, Congress spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill also drew on senior advocate Dushyant Dave’s statement that he had advised SBI’s top management to move Supreme Court and seize Mallya’s passport, but they did not do so. “Who in the Modi government was pressuring SBI and other banks to not move Supreme Court to seize Mallya’s passport? What is the reason why SBI, despite Dave’s advice, did not move court. Does this not point to a conspiracy to facilitate Mallya’s escape?,” he questioned.
Congress’ all round attack against the Finance Minister also saw the Delhi unit of Youth Congress stanging a protest in New Delhi. The protestors, however, were stopped by the police while they were attempting to head towards Jaitley’s residence on Krishna Menon Marg. “BJP, which claims to be a champion of nationalism, has betrayed the nation. Youth Congress will not relent till Arun Jaitley steps down,” said Srinivas BV, vice president of the Indian Youth Congress.
